Internee Documentation

Every Dunera 'passenger' would have had Form of Application for Registration completed upon arrival in Australia. This was a process for all 'aliens' upon arrival: internees and migrants.

It is however unclear as to why for the 200 Dunera Italians, only a handful of these forms have been archived.

Between Fremantle, Western Australia and Melbourne, Victoria, Australian Captain Heighway engaged the services of four interpreters of the British Guards to go to assigned sections on the ship and take the full details and fingerprints for every internee on the Dunera. One of the short comings of the British Command was that very little documentation for the internees accompanied them on their voyage. Hence the need for Captain Heighway to have documentation completed in advance of disembarkation at Melbourne on the 3rd September 1940.

This process was noted by Oswald Wolkenstein, an Austrian student also on the Dunera, in his journal: 1 September: Fingerprints were taken and cards filled out for the Germans and Italians. Memo: Now we know quite definitely that we are going to stay in Australia. How long? (Pearl, Cyril The Dunera Scandal 1983)

Vittorio Tolaini recalled that photos were taken in the first few days of being in Tatura with a sign hung around their necks.  The few surviving forms and photos offer a glimpse of the men 55 days on the Dunera and almost three months since their arrest.

The Dunera voyage was not kind to them.

The second photo of Vittorio Bechelli on the left, was possibly taken in preparation for his departure from Australia. To disembark in the United Kingdom, the Italians required identity documents with an accompanying photograph; documents which would have been processed in Australia before departure.